IICT, Netflix announce scholarships for 100 students across six creative programmes

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 26 (ANI): The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) and Netflix have announced scholarships for 100 students, offering up to 80 per cent financial support across six professional programmes aimed at strengthening India's creative talent pipeline.
The scholarship initiative covers two one-year diploma programmes -- Interactive Comics & Sequential Arts and Visual Effects Mastery -- and four six-month certificate programmes in Virtual Art Department Content Creation, Media Tech Workflow, Art of Character Animation, and E-Sports & Gaming Management, as per the press release.
The scholarships will be available to students and working professionals from across India.
The initiative follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos on August 5, during which Modi highlighted India's rich storytelling tradition and vast creative talent pool and called for strengthening the country's position as a global hub for content creation.
The Netflix India Storytelling Initiative was subsequently launched to invest in India's creative talent pipeline and equip the next generation of storytellers with industry-relevant skills across the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) ecosystem.
According to IICT, the curriculum for its Visual Effects Mastery and Media Tech Workflow programmes has been developed in alignment with contemporary industry workflows and global standards, with inputs from Netflix.
Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and Chairman of the IICT Board Chanchal Kumar said the creative economy is at an inflexion point as technology transforms the way stories are created.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar said the collaboration with Netflix would bring industry perspectives into the academic framework, including curriculum design, professional workflows and standards expected from students.
Chairman of the FICCI AVGC-XR Forum Munjal Shroff said the FICCI-IICT-Netflix collaboration marks a shift towards industry-aligned talent development to create a future-ready workforce for India's AVGC-XR sector.
IICT is India's national centre of excellence for the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics and Extended Reality (AVGC-XR) sector. It was established by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in partnership with the Maharashtra government, FICCI and CII, as per the press release.
The institute currently operates from the NFDC Complex on Pedder Road in Mumbai, while its permanent 10-acre campus is being developed at Film City, Goregaon. (ANI)